SOP(s) from 2001

I come from an academically accomplished family. My father, a university professor, and my mother, a high school teacher, have been the greatest influence on my life. They have always encouraged me to learn more, work hard, face challenges and enjoy the crests and troughs of life. Our picturesque university township provided the perfect setting to grow up discovering the joys of scientific problem solving from early on, and I picked up couple of accolades on the way. I received National Talent Search Scholarship, awarded to only 150 students each year by Government of India, during my penultimate year in high school. I ranked third in Science Talent Search Examination conducted by the National Science Society in 1993, followed by a second rank in the subsequent year. I was ranked thirteen among 350 thousand students in Secondary Examination (1994) and twenty third among 260 thousand students in Higher Secondary Examination (1996). I was also selected for participation in the Indian National Mathematics Olympiad by virtue of qualifying from the ten thousand strong Regional Mathematics Olympiad contestants.

The best brains in India usually tend to look for a career in engineering. However, I opted to stride down the path of Statistics despite having the crenditials and opportunites to attend the most prestigeous engineering institutes in India after graduating from high school. I fell in love with Statistics at high school. It was one of my four major areas of concentration (Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry being the other three). From the age old coin tossing experiment to the time series analysis of rainfall data, everything involved in that subject seemed to invigorate my fledgling passion for Statistics during those high school days, which in turn blossomed into a desire to make a career in Statistics.

I joined the B.Stat. program in the prestigeous Indian Statistical Institute after completion of my high school studies. The admission process for this undergraduate program with full government stipends and contingency grants for the entire three years of program duration is very rigorous, where about thirty students from a nationwide admission test make the grade. I completed the program with an aggregate 85.46 percentage that was laced with cash and other awards for good performances in the class. Currently I am in the final year of the two year M.Stat. program at the same institute.

I had some foundations in Statistics before I joined the institute, but it was a new world of knowledge for me. Here I was previledged to receive a thorough training in theoretical as well as practical Statistics. Mathematics has also been a constant companion throughout my studies here. I have learned a lot on different aspects of Statistics from more than thirty graduate and undergraduate courses, including courses in Probability Theory, Stochastic Processes, Complex Analysis, Optimization Techniques and Functional Analysis. I have also enjoyed courses in Applied Statistics especially those on Regression Techniques and Time Series Analysis. I have taken two Sample Survey and three Design of Experiment courses where I was exposed to the areas of current research interests. The course on BioStatistics facinated me where I learned the mysteries of population genetics, genotypes, phenotypes, genetic change and inheritance through the eyes of a statistician. I also learned recent advancements in Bootstrap and other resampling techniques along with U, L and M-statistics in the Nonparametric Inference course. I have also taken two courses on Biology and one each on Physics, Anthropology and Human Genetics apart from the in-depth courses in Statistics and Mathematics during my five years of study at the institute.

Research projects are an integral part of my curriculum at Indian Statistical Institute, especially for the last three years. I had been selected for Summer Research Fellowship offered by Jawaharlal Nehru Center for Advanced Scientific Research in association with the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India. Only 100 students from all the graduate schools in India are selected for this reknowned summer research program. My research project was on analyzing fatal accidents data of Indian coal mines where analysis of the accidents were made via a few regression models involving the effects of working shifts, various owning companies, mine types, manshift and production. The findings are summarized in my paper "Fatal Accidents in Indian Coal Mines," co-authored with D. SenGupta and published in Calcutta Statistical Association Bulletin.

My research participation includes selection in the Visiting Students' Research Program at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research during December 1998 where I studied general and algebric topology. Some of my other completed research projects are Markov Chain Model in the Analysis of Drought-proneness in West Bengal and Bihar states of India, Financial Solvency of Indian Firms, Traffic Data Analysis on B.T.Road to study causes of congestion, Sample Survey project on Awareness among High School Students and Teachers about the Indian Statistical Institute.

Computing has played a major role in my academic development. I have attended courses on numerical methods and programming. I am a proficient programmer in Fortran and C. I have also mastered a variety of statistical packages including S-Plus, SAS, SPSSX, Shazam and BMDP. The data analysis of my "Fatal Accidents in Indian Coal Mines" project was done using the S-Plus 4.5 package.

The class presentations at the Indian Statistical Institute have provided me the opportunity to sharpen my communication skills. These one to two hour long presentations were generally taken up from scratch and had to be explained to a certain depth. EM Algorithm, Missing Data Analysis, Generalized Linear Models, Bootstrap and Jacknife, Cramer's Estimation for Ruin were some of my presentation topics. I have always prepared meticulously for my presentations including a lot of self-study on those topics, made vast topics concise as well as lucid at the same time, and felt satisfied when my audience understood and appreciated the presented concepts.

With this background, I am keen to work in the field of Applied Statistics or related interdisciplinary fields for my doctoral studies. I have research interests in regression techniques, sample survey, design of experiments, time series analysis, stochastic processes and optimization techniques. I am also open to widening my knowledge in fields hitherto unknown to me.

I aspire to become a reknowned professor in Statistics. This far step by step planning and their successful execution have placed me in a situation where I dare to dream of fulfilling my dreams to do research and teach, the former to keep me within the spectrum of developments taking place in my field, and the latter to expose the very same to others and to provoke and nurture their interest. With a background of more than four years of specialization coupled with research endeavors in various facets of Statistics, I am well equipped to set forth into this exciting and challenging world of inventions and discoveries.

The extensive research facilities and highly qualified faculty together with the spirit of craetivity and scientific environment have prompted me to apply to XYZ University's Doctoral program in Statistics. I look forward to joining the Institute in order to share the excitement in this unique and evolutionary program and to be a part of the excellent work that is being carried out there.

(ABHYUDAY MANDAL)

Mathematics has always been one of my favorite subjects. When I was young, I used to derive a lot of pleasure in playing with numbers and applying mathematical concepts. I took part and won prizes in several National Talent contests in mathematics. However, it was later that I realized that mathematics was not just fun, but also an excellent tool for decision-making. The ability to extract so much information from a limited source made a deep impact on me. During high school, I spent countless hours to pursue my interest in mathematics and statistics and prepare me for an undergraduate degree in that field. My hard work and dedication paid off when I ranked successfully among the top 30 of over 10,000 applicants in a tough entrance examination to gain admission to the prestigious Indian Statistical Institute (ISI), in Calcutta, India.

The ISI is one of Asia's premiere research institutes, that specializes in research in applied and theoretical statistics. I completed my bachelor's degree with honors in statistics at ISI with a full scholarship and book grant from the Government of India. I pursued my passion for mathematics and statistics, and am currently specializing in Bio-statistics and Data Analysis. I am scheduled to graduate with a Masters degree in Statistics in May 2001.

At ISI, I came across a lot of real life problems through the assignments and projects, which were an integral part of the coursework. Among the various projects that I was involved in, the one that I liked most, was a problem on traffic data analysis. The project involved not just the analysis, but also required careful collection, storage and management of the data. It was a class project and I almost single-handedly organized the data management part. The dataset contained 10,000 data points and made me aware of the problems that arise in handling large amount of information. Through a Regression project on Model Building to assess the 'Performance of the CPU', I was able to see statistics being put to use for a real-life problem.

I enjoyed making presentations in the class on various topics such as 'Generalized Linear Models', 'Re-sampling Techniques', 'Missing Data Analysis', and 'Nested Linear Models'. Apart from making me aware of new areas, these presentations also helped me realize my teaching potential. I learnt to venture into newer and diversified areas not necessarily confined to the realm of statistics.

Along with developing a thorough grounding in statistics and mathematics, I also nurtured my deep-rooted interest in computers. My love for computing dates back to my high school years, where I learnt basic computing concepts and programming languages such as Basic, Pascal and C. During my high school years, I took classes in addition to my school syllabus such as "Operating Systems Concepts" etc., so that I learnt not just how to use computers but also how they actually functioned. During my undergraduate years, I quickly realized the significance of computers in the application of statistical concepts to challenging real world problems. I also realized that knowledge and mastery over computing concepts is essential to make the most of my skills in mathematics and statistics.

I decided to actively pursue that goal by taking courses on "Data Structures", "Algorithmic Concepts" and "Database Management", in parallel to the statistics and mathematics courses that I had already enrolled in. Apart from completing the formal courses that I took, I also spend a lot of time trying to constantly learn new things about computers. It was this interest that helped our team of three students succeed in developing a 3-D interactive computer game, which can be played on the Internet, for our annual college festival. (http://k.sreekrishna.tripod.com/vspark/welcome.html).

My interests in advanced studies and research stem from my dual passions for mathematics and computing. My research areas of interest include fields like Pattern Recognition, Artificial Neural Networks, Genetic Algorithms and Data Mining, which use a great deal of both statistical and computing concepts. As a further step in this line, I am now doing a project in "An Application of Self-Organization Maps for Speech/Word Recognition" using Hidden Markov Models.

I believe that my strong and unique background in mathematics and computing will distinguish me from other students and would enable my success as a graduate student at University of California, Santa Barbara. Apart from having the requisite background, I am confident that my dedication, hard work and strong will to achieve success will help me create a niche for myself in the areas of my interest. I am well aware of the reputation enjoyed by your university and your distinguished faculty and feel that UCSB offers the most exciting and challenging opportunities for me to realize my dreams. I consider it an honor and a privilege to have the opportunity to pursue my Master's degree in Computer Science at UCSB.

Thank you for considering my application.

Sree Krishna Kumaraswamy

When in high school, my interest in mathematics also helped me secure the top rank at the state level, and then qualify at the national level, of the Mathematical Olympiad. This is a challenging mathematical exam ( at the high school level ) in which around ten thousand students take part ( each year ) and thirty are selected to attend a preparatory training camp for the International Mathematics Olympiad. The two such camps that I attended introduced me to some very interesting mathematics, such as the pigeon-hole principle, Ramsey theory and graph theory, and various number-theoretic tools. The camps also served to sharpen my thought processes and improve my analytical skills.

While in high school, I also managed to write a small paper on divisibility tests in any natural base, which was published by an undergraduate journal in my last year in my final year at high school. The paper and the IMO training camps reinforced my decision of pursuing a career in mathematics.

I am currently completing my undergraduate studies in the Indian Statistical Institute ( Calcutta ), one of the most prestigious academic institutions in India. I was one of about thirty students who qualified in a nationwide admission test.

The Indian Statistical Institute offers training in statistics and mathematics, whose standard is comparable with the best in the world. Here, I took a number of courses in algebra, (real) analysis, and probability. I informally attended a course each in abstract algebra, as well as in topology and set theory. I also learnt some programming - a bit of Fortran and C - and took courses in numerical methods as well as differential equations.

Apart from my undergraduate studies, I also attended the Nurture Programs in the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research ( TIFR, Bombay ), for one month each in the summers of '98 and '99. These programs gave us exposure to many different areas of mathematics - Galois theory, modules, topology, and measure theory among others. I have been selected to attend the next Nurture Program ( in TIFR, in June 2000 ), as well as in the VSRP ( Visiting Students Research Program ), again in TIFR, in Nov-Dec '99.

With the rigorous training that I have had in the various branches of mathematics, I am confident that I will be able to meet the demands and requirements of the graduate courses and research work in your department. I hope to pursue a career in research in mathematics, and eventually contribute to this branch of knowledge.

Thank you for considering my application.

Apoorva Khare